Chase was named for his adoptive grandfather Cornelius. The nickname Chevy was bestowed by his grandmother, derived from the medieval English The Ballad of Chevy Chase. As a descendant of the Scottish Clan Douglas, the name "Chevy" seemed appropriate to her.[3]

Chase's parents divorced when he was four; his father remarried into the Folgers coffee family, and his mother remarried twice. Both his parents died in 2005. Chase has stated that he grew up in an upper middle class environment and that his maternal grandfather did not bequeath any assets to Chase's mother when he died.[4] Chase has made recent claims that he was abused as a child by his mother and stepfather, John Cederquist.[5]

Chase did not enter medical school, which meant he would be subject to the military draft. Chase was not drafted; when Chase appeared in January 1989 as the first guest of the just-launched late-night Pat Sajak Show, he said he had convinced his draft board he deserved a 4-F classification by "falsely claiming, among other things, that he had homosexual tendencies."[7]

Early career

Chase was a member of an early underground comedy ensemble called Channel One which he co-founded in 1967. He also wrote a one-page spoof on Mission: Impossible for Mad Magazine in 1970 and was a writer for the short-lived Smothers Brothers TV show comeback in the early 1970s. Chase made the move to comedy as a full-time career by 1973, when he became a cast member of The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a syndicated satirical radio series. The Lampoon Radio Hour also featured John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, and Brian Doyle-Murray, all of whom later became "Not-Ready-For-Prime Time Players" on NBC Saturday Night (later retitled NBC's Saturday Night and finally Saturday Night Live). Chase and Belushi also appeared in National Lampoon's off-Broadway revue Lemmings, a sketch and musical send-up of popular youth culture (in which Chase also played the drums during the musical numbers). He appeared in the theatrical release The Groove Tube which was directed by another co-founder of Channel One, Ken Shapiro, and which featured several Channel One sketches.

Saturday Night Live

Chase was one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live (SNL), NBC's late-night comedy television show, beginning in October, 1975. During the full first season, he introduced every show except one by saying, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" The remark was often preceded by a pratfall, known as "The Fall of the Week." Chase has since become known as a genius of physical comedy. In one comedy sketch, he mimicked a real-life incident in which President Gerald Ford accidentally tripped while disembarking from Air Force One in Salzburg, Austria.[8][9] This portrayal of President Ford as a bumbling klutz became a favorite device of Chase and helped form the popular concept of Ford as being a clumsy man.[10] In later years, Chase met and became friendly with President Ford.[11][12] Chase's physical stunts led to at least one self-injury. During a skit in the second season of SNL, the comedian was injured when he fell on an unpadded podium and bruised a testicle. This injury forced him to broadcast two of the show's segments live from his hospital bed.

Chase was the original anchor for the Weekend Update segment of SNL, and his catchphrase introduction—"I'm Chevy Chase... and you're not"—became well known. His trademark conclusion—"Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow"—was later resurrected by Tina Fey. Chase also wrote comedy material for Weekend Update. For example, he wrote and performed "The News For The Hard Of Hearing." In this skit, Chase would read the top story of the day, aided by Garrett Morris, who would repeat the story by loudly shouting it. Chase claimed that his version of Weekend Update would later be the inspiration for other mock-news shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.[13] (Weekend Update was later revived as a segment on The Chevy Chase Show,[14] a short-lived late-night talk-show produced by Chase and broadcast by Fox Broadcasting Company.)

Chase also performed in other skits on SNL, including a recurring gag as a Landshark. His racially-charged "word association" skit opposite Richard Pryor from SNL's first season is frequently cited by television critics as one of the funniest (and most daring) skits in the show's history.

Chevy Chase at the private party after the premiere of the movie A Star is Born, December 1976

Chase became the first breakout star of SNL. He was committed contractually to Saturday Night Live for only one year as a writer, not an SNL cast member. He had signed a one year writing contract and became a cast member during rehearsals just before the show's premiere. Nonetheless, he received two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for his comedy writing and live comic acting.

In a 1975 New York magazine cover story which called him "The funniest man in America", NBC executives referred to Chase as "The first real potential successor to Johnny Carson" and claimed he would begin guest-hosting The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson within six months of the article. Chase actually never did guest host the Tonight Show during his early peak years of success, and in fact did not even appear on the program until 1978, when he was promoting a prime time special for NBC. Carson later said of Chase after guest-hosting the Tonight Show; "He couldn't ad lib a fart after a baked bean dinner".[15]

Chase acknowledged Ernie Kovacs' influence on his work in Saturday Night Live,[16] and he thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for SNL.[17] In addition, Chase spoke of Kovacs' influence on his work in an appearance in the 1982 documentary called Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius.[18]

Leaving SNL

Chase was the first member of the original SNL cast to leave the show in 1976. After leaving SNL, Chase moved to Los Angeles and married his girlfriend, Jacqueline Carlin. Chase made a few cameo appearances as the second season wound down; he was eventually replaced by Bill Murray.

Chase hosted SNL eight times after he left, most recently in 1997. He appeared on the show's twenty-fifth anniversary special in 1999 and was interviewed for a 2005 NBC special on SNL's first five years. He also made four cameo appearances later: once in a Caddyshack skit (featuring Bill Murray), the October 25, 1997 episode with guest host Chris Farley, as the Landshark in Weekend Update during the October 6, 2001 episode, and again on Weekend Update, delivering a political news/commentary, on the October 6, 2007 episode.

Chase narrowly escaped death by electrocution during the filming of Modern Problems in 1980. During a sequence in which Chase's character wears 'landing lights' as he dreams that he is an airplane, the current in the lights short-circuited and arced through Chase's arm, back, and neck muscles. The near-death episode caused Chase to experience a period of deep depression, as his marriage to Jacqueline had ended just prior to the start of filming. Chase continued his film career in 1983's National Lampoon's Vacation, directed by Ramis and written by John Hughes. He married Jayni Luke in 1983, and in 1985, he starred in Fletch, the first of two films based on Gregory Mcdonald's Fletch books. Chase joined SNL veterans Steve Martin and Martin Short in the Lorne Michaels-produced comedy ¡Three Amigos! in 1986, declaring in an interview that making ¡Three Amigos! was the most fun he had had on a film. The trio hosted SNL that year, the only time the show has had three hosts on one show.

At the height of his career in the late 1980s, Chase earned around $7 million per film and was a highly visible celebrity. He appeared alongside Paul Simon, one of his best friends, in Simon's 1986 second video for "You Can Call Me Al", in which he lip-syncs all of Simon's lyrics. Chase hosted the Academy Awards in 1987 and 1988, signing on to the proceedings in 1987 with the opener, "Good evening, Hollywood phonies!" Chase filmed a sequel to Vacation, 1985's National Lampoon's European Vacation and then a third, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, in 1989, which, thanks to its holiday theme, has become one of his more durable films, airing on NBC every December. He played saxophone onstage at Simon's free concert at the Great Lawn in Central Park in the summer of 1991. Later in 1991, he helped record and appeared in the music video "Voices That Care" to entertain and support U.S. troops involved in Operation Desert Storm, and supported the International Red Cross.

Later work

Chase's career took a downturn in the early 90s. Chase had three consecutive film flops from his later period: 1991's Razzie award-nominated Nothing But Trouble, 1992's Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and 1994's Cops and Robbersons. The three releases had a combined gross of $34 million in the U.S. Even the durable Vacation series ground to a halt, following 1997's Vegas Vacation installment. Some of the more recent movies starring Chase (e.g., Vacuums, Rent-a-Husband, Goose!) have not been released in the United States. He returned to mainstream movie-making in 2006, co-starring with Tim Allen and Courteney Cox in the comedy Zoom, though it was both a critical and commercial failure.

Return to television

Chase guest-starred as an anti-Semitic murder suspect in "In Vino Veritas", the November 3, 2006 episode of Law & Order. He also guest-starred in the ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters in two episodes as a former love interest of Sally Field's character. Chase appeared in a prominent recurring role as villainous software magnate Ted Roark on the NBC spy-comedy Chuck. In 2009, Chase and Dan Aykroyd provided voices for the Family Guy episode "Spies Reminiscent of Us".

Chase is currently starring in the NBC sitcom Community, as aging moist-towelette tycoon Pierce Hawthorne. In 2010, he appeared in the film Hot Tub Time Machine, as well as a short online film featuring the Griswold Family, and in the Funny or Die original comedy sketch "Presidential Reunion", where he played President Ford alongside other current and former SNL president impersonators.

Personal life

Chase is the father of three girls, Cydney Cathalene (born January 4, 1983), Caley Leigh (born January 19, 1985), and Emily Evelyn (born September 29, 1988). He lives with his wife, Jayni (née Luke), in Bedford, New York.

Chase is an active environmentalist and charity fundraiser. He raised money and campaigned for Bill Clinton in the 1990s and John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election. Following the 2004 elections, Chase criticized PresidentGeorge W. Bush during a speech at a People For the American Way benefit at the Kennedy Center, referring to the President as an "uneducated, real lying schmuck" and a "dumb fuck". Event organizers and several Bush detractors present at the event distanced themselves from Chase's comments, with Norman Lear remarking, "he'll live with it, I won't."[22]

Chevy Chase — Original name in latin Chevy Chase Name in other language State code US Continent/City America/New York longitude 38.97122 latitude 77.07637 altitude 112 Population 9545 Date 2011 05 14 … Cities with a population over 1000 database

Chevy Chase — (The Ballad of Chevy Chase) a 15th century English ballad describing the battle of Otterburn between the Percys and the Douglases. * * * [ chevē chās] a fashionable suburb north of Washington, DC, in Montgomery County in Maryland; pop. 8,559 … Useful english dictionary